Preprints
There are 2173 Preprints listed.
Accounting for cloud cover and circannual variation puts the effect of lunar phase on deer-vehicle collisions into perspective
Published: 2022-11-22
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Zoology
Although several studies have focused on the influence of moonlight over deer-vehicle collisions, findings have been inconsistent. This may be due to neglecting the effects of cloud cover, a major impediment to moon illumination, and circannual variation in both deer and human activity. We modeled how median cloud cover interacted with the illuminated fraction of the moon in affecting daily roe [...]
On the origin of speciation
Published: 2022-11-21
Subjects: Life Sciences
Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution that natural selection leads to the evolution of organisms in "On the Origin of Species”, but did not show the mechanism by which new species differentiate and fix. Speciation requires a system in which genes are not mixed by interspecific hybridization, and reproductive isolation, especially postmating reproductive isolation, is considered to be [...]
A tale of two genomes: What drives mitonuclear discordance in asexual lineages of a freshwater snail?
Published: 2022-11-21
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
We use genomic information to tell us stories of evolutionary origins. But what does it mean when different genomes report wildly different accounts of lineage history? This “discordance” can be a consequence of a fascinating suite of natural history and evolutionary phenomena, from the different inheritance mechanisms of nuclear vs. cytoplasmic genomes to hybridization and introgression to [...]
Understanding the systematics and evolution of Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus (Ericaceae): progress and prospects
Published: 2022-11-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
The true blueberries (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus; Ericaceae) comprise a clade of about nine to 24 species distributed mainly in eastern temperate North America, with one species reaching farther west. Despite extensive study, the systematics and evolution of the group are still poorly understood. Limited morphological variation, multiple ploidy levels of uncertain origin, and natural [...]
Typification of plants illustrated by Feuillée: a reply to Zanotti et al.
Published: 2022-11-18
Subjects: Biodiversity
ABSTRACT: Zanotti et al. (2022a) lectotypified Gnaphalium viravira Feuillée ex Molina with its illustration in Feuillée (1725). They concluded that this illustration qualified as original material seen by Molina (1782). However, Hershkovitz (2020a, b) had concluded that Molina had not seen any of the illustrations in Feuillée (1725), thus none qualify as original material for taxa he validly [...]
Few studies of wild animal performance account for parasite infections: a systematic review
Published: 2022-11-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
1. Wild animals have parasites. This inconvenient truth has far-reaching implications for biologists measuring animal performance traits: infection with parasites can alter host behaviour and physiology in profound and sometimes counterintuitive ways. Yet, to what extent do studies on wild animals take individual infection status into account? 2. We performed a systematic review across eight [...]
Morphological plasticity in a caddisfly that co-occurs in lakes and streams
Published: 2022-11-18
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences
Lake and stream fauna are frequently studied, yet surprisingly little is known about ecological and evolutionary dynamics of species that inhabit both lentic and lotic habitats. There are few examples of species co-occurring in the different habitat flow types, which raises questions on how this may impact their ability to adapt to changing climatic conditions. The aquatic insect Limnephilus [...]
A synthetic review: natural history of amniote reproductive modes in light of comparative evolutionary genomics
Published: 2022-11-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
There is a current lack of consensus on whether the ancestral parity mode was oviparity (egg-laying) or viviparity (live-birth) in amniotes and particularly in squamates (snakes, lizards, and amphisbaenids). How transitions between parity modes occur at the genomic level has primary importance for how science conceptualizes the origin of amniotes, and highly variable parity modes in Squamata. [...]
Misrepresenting biases in arrival: a comment on Svensson (2022)
Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Evolution, Life Sciences
The idea that adaptive change is subject to biases in variation by a "first come, first served" dynamic is not part of classic evolutionary reasoning. Yet, predictable effects of biases in the introduction of variation have been reported in models of population genetics, in laboratory evolution, and in retrospective analyses of natural adaptation. This effect of "arrival bias" has potentially [...]
Rethinking convergence in plant parasitism integrating molecular and population genetic processes
Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
Photosynthesis has shaped the body plan, physiology, as well as gene repertoire of all plants. Shifts to a parasitic lifestyle evolved at least twelve times, leading to more than four thousand extant parasitic plant species. This transition has consistently left a major evolutionary footprint among these parasites. Otherwise rare features have evolved repetitively at the molecular level and [...]
Rock climbing affects cliff-plant communities by reducing species diversity and altering species coexistence patterns
Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Life Sciences
Cliffs are unique ecosystems with an outstanding but relatively unknown plant diversity, harboring rare, endemic and threatened species, but also common and dominant species. The rising popularity of climbing represents an increasing threat to cliff biota, potentially diminishing diversity and species associations, and affecting the community composition. We used a novel closely paired sampling [...]
Toward the comprehensive understanding of food chain length
Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
1. Food chain length (FCL), roughly defined by the number of trophic links, is one important aspect of biodiversity. However, studies on FCL are limited to simple food webs (e.g., only three or four species in a community) or simple hypotheses (i.e., what is a determinant of FCL?) 2. In this review, we propose research directions to comprehensively understand how multiple environmental factors [...]
The Q approach to consensus building: integrating diverse perspectives to guide decision-making
Published: 2022-11-11
Subjects: Communication, Environmental Policy, Environmental Studies, Geography, Models and Methods, Policy Design, Analysis, and Evaluation, Political Science, Social and Behavioral Sciences
1. Decision-making processes are complex and time-intensive, particularly when a consensus needs to be achieved amongst more than two parties. Discussions and negotiations must consider all relevant stakeholders and their individual perspectives on the decision to be taken. Methods for identifying, understanding, and acknowledging divergent perspectives can support successful consensus building. [...]
The cost of being a non-native English speaker in science
Published: 2022-11-10
Subjects: Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, International and Intercultural Communication, Publishing, Scholarly Publishing
The use of English as the common language of science represents a major impediment to maximising the contribution of non-native English speakers to science. Yet few studies have quantified the consequences of language barriers on the career development of researchers who are non-native English speakers. Our survey demonstrates that non-native English speakers, especially early in their careers, [...]
Space-for-time substitutions in climate change ecology and evolution
Published: 2022-11-10
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
In an epoch of rapid environmental change, understanding and predicting how biodiversity will respond to a changing climate is an urgent challenge. Since we seldom have sufficient long-term biological data to use the past to anticipate the future, spatial climate-biotic relationships are often used as a proxy for predicting biotic responses to climate change over time. These ‘space-for-time [...]